Imprisonment Till the end of Natural Life
Reeking of Retribution and Vengeance
Udit Singh*
The concept of punishment is as old as the concept of crime. The aim and purpose of punishment keep on changing according to the time and needs of society, the latest being the rehabilitation and reformation of offenders. But no society has ever proved with substantial evidence that the purpose of punishment has been achieved.
The courts and legislature stick to the need for stricter punishment when the public starts losing faith in the justice delivery system. The courts and legislature act as ‘anxiety barometers’1 which echoes the degree of anxiety in society. But do the courts and lawmakers have to go by society’s perception of justice? Are their decisions not supposed to be independent of public outcry of retributive justice?
The five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Union of India v. V. Sriharan2 with a 3:2 majority upheld the Swamy Shraddananda’s3 ratio, which provides for infliction of a special form of indeterminate life sentence without remission. The court stated that this type of special sentence shall only be imposed by the High Courts and the Supreme Court. Parliament has also adopted this special life sentence -- life imprisonment till the person’s natural life vide amendments in IPC in 20134 and 20185 for several offences.
The newly enacted BNS, which came into force on July 1, 2024, has incorporated “imprisonment for life, which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of that person’s natural life”, as a punishment for at least eight offences.6
This article examines the nature of the indefinite life sentence vis-à-vis the fundamental rights of a convict. It further analyses whether imposing such whole life sentences would ever achieve the reformative goal of the punishment. Finally, it makes an argument to abolish the whole life sentences without remission.
Imposing ‘Civil Death’
Imprisonment for life without any hope of release can be the most serious punishment on many grounds. It amounts to ‘civil death’, which eliminates the possibility of life outside jail for the convict. Life imprisonment without remission or parole indicates that either the prisoner should die in prison, or there is no possibility for change. The lack of communication with the outside world affects the prisoners both physically as well as mentally, especially when they are kept in solitary confinement.
The sentence of life imprisonment without remission is based on two propositions. First, it gives a message that the crime committed by the convict is so brutal and culpable that the proportional punishment for the same is life imprisonment without any hope of release and the convict deserves to die in prison. This approach indicates retribution of the worst order. Second, from a utilitarian perspective, such punishment elucidates that the offender is beyond reformation and rehabilitation and, therefore, he or she can never be integrated into society again.
Dolovich7 states that life sentence without parole is an exclusionary strategy and irrevocable exile. In one stroke, the target is permanently exiled, foreclosed from ever making a case for release:“it is thus to be expected that a system committed to permanent exclusion would embrace the use of life sentence without parole.”8
It has been rightly pointed out that life sentence without parole promises that the convict will never reemerge, never reintegrate and never yet again move freely in the shared public space. In this context, what will be the motivation to participate in educational or other rehabilitative programs for the convict if he is never going to be integrated into the society again? Are the courts in India embracing exclusion by branding prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment without remission as ‘non-citizens’? These questions need to be addressed for developing an understanding of the successful rehabilitation of convicts.
The court usually ignores the good behaviour and improvement shown by the convict while serving a prison sentence. The potential of a prisoner to reform should not be decided on the basis of the brutality of the crime committed by him or her; rather it should be determined by considering the good conduct of the prisoner in the jail and his behaviour in prison should be reviewed from time to time.
Thus, the very nature of this special life sentence is retribution and vengeance, which is being justified by the courts and legislature in the name of reformation.
Life sentence without parole is an exclusionary strategy and irrevocable exile.
Underlying Belief: An Alternative to Death Sentence?
The life imprisonment without remission or parole is being awarded as an alternative to the capital punishment. But no punishment should be shielded as an alternative to another punishment without looking into the nature of the sentence itself.
The situation of the life convict without remission is that of one who is on indefinite death row. The prisoner is mentally and emotionally destroyed in the process. Practically, a life sentence without remission is not different from a death sentence as both are irrevocable in nature. The only difference which can be derived is that while in a death sentence there is an execution date, the sentence of life imprisonment without remission is without any such execution date. Also, there is no concrete and substantial data which shows that the death penalty has a deterrent effect. If capital sentence does not deter then how can it be concluded that indefinite life imprisonment without remission will have a deterrent effect?
The sentence of life imprisonment without remission denies the fundamental freedoms to the prisoner without any hope of restoration and reintegration into society. The basis and reasoning for imposing such harsh and irrevocable punishment is that the convict is beyond reformation.
Violation of Right to Dignity
The special life imprisonment infringes upon the right to dignity of the convict. It leads to a complete denunciation of the convict as a person. It is inaccurate to state that the one-time irrevocable punishment fulfils the mandate of proportionality. Also, a life sentence without any hope of release discourages the convict’s reformation and rehabilitation.
From a human rights perspective, such a special sentence does not have any place in modern penology as two wrongs do not make a right. Life imprisonment without remission is dehumanising as the court presumes that the convict is beyond reformation. The very fact that the convict is sentenced to die in prison, is a violation of one’s human dignity as there is no possibility for the convict to reintegrate into society.
No hope for release can lead to mental and emotional torture of the prisoner, thereby violating one’s human rights. Also, the court, while pronouncing the sentence of life imprisonment without remission, makes a one-time decision that the convict is beyond reformation and not fit to join society again. Such presumption is flawed as nobody knows the future and depriving prisoners of the chance to be penitent and reform themselves violates their fundamental rights. If there is no hope for release, the prisoner may not follow the way of self-reflection and the whole purpose of reformation is defeated.
The Kenyan Example
In the latest development, the Kenya Court of Appeal, in the case of Julius Kitsao Manyeso v. Republic (2023), has declared the imposition of mandatory life imprisonment as unconstitutional, The Court noted:“…..mandatory life imprisonment is an unjustifiable discrimination, unfair and repugnant to the principle of equality before the law under Article 27 of the Constitution. In addition, an indeterminate life sentence is in our view also inhumane treatment and violates the right to dignity under Article 28.”
the punishment of life imprisonment. The Court found it unjustified not specifically on the facts of the case, but rather on the basis that the sentence of life imprisonment itself was unconstitutional. It observed: “A life sentence is a sentence sui generis. In that, whereas it is philosophically supposedly imprisonment for a duration of time only, it is in actual sense imprisonment that is indeterminable, indefinite, uncompletable, mathematically incalculable, and therefore quantifiable only for the convict’s entire remainder of his lifetime.”9
Life imprisonment without remission is dehumanising as the court presumes that the convict is beyond reformation.
Defeating the Purpose of Reformation
The Prison Statistics India, 2022, states that 75,629 of the total number of 1,33,415 convicts are sentenced to life imprisonment, which constitutes 56.7% of the total convict population. However, there is no study which provides the data regarding the number of prisoners sentenced to indefinite life sentences without remission. Also, the same report indicates that out of the total number of 1,25,533 released convicts, only 3,159 convicts have been provided with financial assistance on their release and 1,622 have been rehabilitated during the year 2022. Considering the pace and process of rehabilitation of prisoners in India, an indeterminate life sentence without remission will make the reformation and reintegration of prisoners more complex, if not impossible.
In this sense, it seems life sentence without remission has failed both deterrence as well as reformative theory of justice. The whole idea of reformation of prisoners has no place in such a special sentence of life imprisonment. With no hope of release, the prisoners would not self-reflect or introspect, which is fundamental for reformation.
If a person has to remain in jail for the remainder of life, the purpose of punishment i.e. reformation of offenders, which the Supreme Court has preached time and again, is completely defeated. This sentence should be declared unconstitutional for being violative of Article 21 of the Constitution and therefore abolished. A modern society does not have any place for such retributive and inhumane sentences.
References
- Mathiesen, T. (2006). Prison on Trial (3rd ed.). Waterside Press (p. 21).
- (2016) 7 SCC 1.
- Swamy Shraddananda v. State of Karnataka (2008) 13 SCC 767.
- Sections 370(6), 370(7), 376, 376A, 376D, 376E of Indian Penal Code, 1860; The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (Act No. 13 of 2013).
- Sections 376(3), 376AB, 376DA, 376DB of Indian Penal Code, 1860; The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 (Act No. 22 of 2018).
- Sections 64(2), 65(1), 65(2), 66, 70(2), 117(3), 143(6), 143(7); The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
- Dolovich, S (2012). Creating the Permanent Prisoner, in Jr. J. Ogletree, Charles and Sarat, Austin (eds), Life without Parole: America’s New Death Penalty?. New York University Press (p. 110).
- Ibid.
- Bhatia, G. The High Court of Kenya Strikes Down Life Imprisonment (Constitutional Law and Philosophy, 25 March 2024) https://bit.ly/4dQ2PMV accessed 10 April 2024.
NEXT »
